Prayer squares Devotionals

Monday, March 12, 2012

In Psalm 139:23-24 it is telling God to search me and try me. That takes trust to give God the reins and let him examine every dark corner of my heart. To find all the things that he doesn't want there and purify my heart. That can be a scary place to be. A very vulnerable place. Who wants to be exposed and raw like that?
I know God already knows me and my thoughts so why do I want to even hold back? He is not surprised by what he finds. It's just me that cringes when his light and truth expose the places I tried to make secret. Things I don't want to look at are coming to the surface, but I am not met with judgement and disdain from God. I am met with his healing love instead. His Holy Spirit is gently and lovingly leading me on. He knows it is for my good and not for my harm to bring me to full healing.

The rest of Psalm 139 is wonderful to read to remind myself exactly who I am to God. When I get to a dark place in my heart that I don't want to look at, I can read that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are God's works, including me. It says that I am on God's mind and many are his thoughts toward me. It says he knows everything about me and is with me everywhere, even in the dark it is as light to him. Nothing is hid. His hand is upon me and I cannot go anywhere where he is not. He will lead me no matter where I go.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Ps 139:23 - 24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if [there be any] wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

The concordance says that wicked in this verse is from the word otseb which means

pain, sorrow, or idol

Wow that just jumped off the page and straight to my heart. I was just talking about hurts and holding onto them instead of letting Jesus set me free from them. And that these things hold me back from serving him fully.

If there is something we hold onto that has become more important, or an excuse that keeps us from serving God, it is an idol.

I am very convicted by this, but there is hope. This psalm is telling me that God can help me search these things out and that God will lead me to healing and freedom from them.

God search my heart and help me to let go of these hurts and sorrows that have become idols, that stand in the way of my serving you. Reveal any lies I have believed from my past. Let your Holy Spirit's light shine through to expose these things and help me release them to you. In Jesus name I pray.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

We have all had moment that come up in our everyday where we have reacted badly. Our buttons get pushed and and we over react to something said or done as if it was the worst possible thing that could have been done to us. Until something else comes along and becomes the worst thing ever done or said.
I have been the type to have emotional knee jerk reactions to what people do or say. Then eventually I calm down and get over it, or so I think. The truth is that the reaction I have is quite often above and beyond a reaction to that one event. Most of the time the reaction is based on echos of the past. Hurts that go deeper then the immediate circumstance, resurface and trigger all kinds of messages learned from other times in my life. My reaction to a co-worker's/spouse's/ friend's remark will stir familiar feelings of not being of value, not being approved of, being rejected and alone, or being unworthy of love and acceptance.
I am challenging myself to take these reactions to God. Praying to the Holy Spirit to reveal where these hurts stem from and offer them up to God to be finally and completely nailed to the cross Jesus died on.The Bible says Jesus died on the cross, bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. Why then am I still holding on to those hurts? He died to set me free so why do I continue to keep the things that make me enslaved to the past?

Is 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Jesus wants me free to serve him and be fully his. I cannot continue where I am, with piles of hurts bogging me down, and serve him fully and wholeheartedly. Those weights that so easily beset me are those hurts. They keep me in fear and from stepping out in faith to serve the God I love with the passion and fervency that he requires.
His desire is to make me more like him. To be able to die to self and look upon the ones that caused the hurt and say "Father forgive them" with the love of Christ in my heart.